Wednesday, April 29, 2015

i am home again!

We celebrated my nephew's first birthday last weekend back in my hometown! Always feels so good to be back home, it is always fun to get together, lots of laughs and good food.

My 'smiles-all-the-time' super duper adorable little nephew has turned 1 year old last Saturday, we got him his first car! Hehe, the kids ride-on BMW and 2 pairs of cute baby sneakers and socks as he begin to learn to walk now!

I remember when we were just a child, my uncle would ask one of us to climb the tree (not very high) and pick some of those large jackfruits.

I miss my childhood very much, nothing beats childhood memories.

Jackfruit is very sweet, delicious also rich in fiber & minerals; but its difficult to cut open and to eat it.Jackfruit is very resinous, and the sticky latex/substance is very hard to remove. Guess I'm just a glutton for food. I managed to cut, trimmed and removed those sticky fibrous strands and finally retrieve all the yummy fruit pods with my bare hands very patiently. Yohoo!

We happened to pass by Ipoh (capital city of Perak state) to buy some nice foods home!How can we miss the best chicken rice in town? (Lou Wong Bean Sprouts Chicken) A must try chicken rice and the best blanched bean sprouts drizzle with the combination of soy sauce, sesame oil, & shallot oil. oh mama mia!

There are many many old bakeries in old town of Ipoh. We went to an old bakery (not so commercialized, not much reno & decor) for these freshly baked egg tarts with piping hot wobbly custard! Oh~ these are really good!

Kompyang is a biscuit popular in my hometown, its like our comfort food! Its made with lard, onions, salt and flour, some with meats, some sweet & soft inside! Best eaten while still hot, but we usually buy more and reheat them with oven.

Mom gave me 2 pineapple crowns, they can be placed directly into the ground and yes! i can actually start growing my own pineapple!

From the info, pineapples don’t really have usable seeds, so pineapple plants start from the pineapple itself, it usually propagate from the crown.

top left - winter melontop right - calamansi bottom left - curious cat that hovering around dailybottom right - daun kaduk / wild betel leaf / piper sarmentosum*(they are widely used throughout SE Asia as a herb in Asian cooking or eaten raw)

My mom usually used them to make otak-otak (fish custard/ dumplings wrapped in banana leaves), or nyonya perut ikan (fermented fish stomach with herbs & vegetable curry). Original recipe are using fermented fish stomach, but my mom substitute it with small prawns and blood cockles.
I know 'fermented fish stomach' sounds a bit weird or scary for you, but trust me~ they taste really good in this nyonya recipe. ^_^